The Disappearance of Mr James Phillimore

by Dan Andriacco

  “Very kind of you to say so,” Mac responded.

  The love fest went on for a while before Heath acknowledged Lynda and me and got down to business. “I’ve taken a statement from Mr. Welles Faro about the events leading up to Mr. Phillimore’s disappearance, but I thought it might be helpful to get your perspective as well.”

  My brother-in-law, the raconteur, started the story from when we arrived in front of Headley Hall. The inspector interrupted frequently with questions, even asking what Phillimore’s jacket looked like. “It was a classic blue blazer with brass buttons,” Mac said. Lynda scribbled in her notebook. Heck, I could have told her that.

  “Taking notes, Ms. Teal?” Heath said.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not yet. I’ll let you know when we’re off the record.” He turned back to Mac. “You’re sure that he had this Conan Doyle notebook he talked about?”

  “Sure?” Mac shook his head. “Strictly speaking, no. All I can assert from my own observation is that he patted his breast pocket and said that he had it. I never actually saw it. Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t on his body, even though he was apparently wearing the same blue blazer.”

  “Is that important?” Mac asked.

  “I doubt it. But it’s an anomaly. I always pay attention to anomalies. Well, he probably left it in the house somewhere. I’m sure it will turn up. Go on, Mr. McCabe.”

  As Mac continued the story, Heath asked a lot of questions about his thought processes and research leading up to the discovery of the priest hole.

  “Incredible,” he said. “Just like one of your books.”

  Mac begged to differ. “My books are not incredible, Inspector. At least, I hope not. Fiction must be plausible, even when it is impossible.”

  Heath chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind, should I ever commit a mystery novel. Now tell me, and you, too, Mr. Cody, what sort of mood would you say that Mr. Phillimore was in when you last saw him?”

  “Downright ebullient,” I said. I love that word because it sounds like what it means.

  “Well, said, Jefferson!” Mac praised. “That is just the descriptive adjective I would choose. He was also animated and friendly.”

  “No signs of depression then?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Well, that’s not unusual with suicides.”

  “Do you have any idea why he killed himself?” Lynda asked. “Presumably he didn’t know that he was being investigated, so that wasn’t it.”

  “Ah, but apparently he did know, somehow,” Heath said. “At least, that’s the way I read the suicide note.”

  Lynda’s gold-flecked brown eyes gleamed as she jumped on that. “Faro’s story didn’t say anything about a suicide note!”

  “We just found out this morning. Phillimore sent a final text message to his wife - one of my favorite actresses, by the way. Ms. O’Toole didn’t recognize it as such at the time because the language was rather indirect.”

  Spread out on Heath’s desk were the personal effects that Phillimore had taken with him to the Langham. The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes, a fat paperback with the detective’s image on the front, was the give-away on that. Heath picked up a smartphone. “Here. See for yourself.”

  Phillimore had written:

  It’s all coming apart. I cannot bear the stain on my honor. This was the only way out. Please forgive me.

  His wife responded.

  U coward. Come back here and face the music. But don’t contact me again. Call my lawyer. I hate u!

  There was no response.

  “What lovebirds,” I muttered.

  “This is all wrong,” Mac said. “Phillimore did not write this.”

  “What do you mean? How do you figure that?” Lynda asked before Heath or I could.

  “No Englishman would spell ‘honor’ that way. He would use the British spelling of h-o-n-o-u-r. This message must have been written by an American, or someone who speaks American English.”

  For a few seconds it was like time stopped. Nobody moved or said anything. Finally, Heath broke the silence. “Well, let’s not get carried away and make a murder mystery out of it. Perhaps Phillimore was just in a hurry or a poor speller.”

  “Tell me about the gun,” Mac said.

  “It was a Colt .32.”

  “Yes, I read that. That’s a fairly common gun in America.” Mac himself owns one. I’m always afraid he’s going to shoot himself with it on the rare occasions when he sticks it into his belt. “Did it belong to Phillimore?”

  “His wife didn’t know. There wouldn’t be a record of it. Guns bigger than .22 are illegal here in the UK, except for Northern Ireland.”

  “May I look at the crime scene photos?”

  “Right here.” Heath shoved them across the desk at Mac.

  As Mac studied the photos, I looked over his shoulder. Phillimore’s head was a bloody mess, his body flopped to one side in a chair.

  “So he shot himself on the right side of his head with the gun in his right hand while he was sitting in the chair next to the table. After firing, he dropped the gun and slumped over.” He looked up. “I suppose Phillimore was right-handed?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. We checked that. Bit of a cliché, isn’t it - the suicide with the gun in the wrong hand? You wouldn’t put that in a story, would you?”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Mac mumbled, still looking at the photos. “Here’s something interesting.” He pointed at one of the photos. “Look at that drinking glass under the table.”

  “What about it?” Heath said.

  “It’s not far from Phillimore’s right hand. Doesn’t it look as if it fell out of it? He couldn’t have had the glass in that hand if he also had a gun in it.”

  “The report noted the stain and the odor of scotch on the carpet,” Heath said. “Perhaps he’d been drinking heavily, dropped the glass, and didn’t think it was worth cleaning up before he picked up the gun to end it all.”

  “That is possible,” Mac conceded. “However, when coupled with the obviously bogus suicide message, I find it implausible.”

  “So how do you walk up to somebody in his own hotel room and shoot him?” Lynda asked.

  “I would suggest that with Phillimore ‘the worse for drink,’ as they say, he was in no condition to appreciate the threat coming or to resist.”

  “A killer could scarcely count on being able to get him drunk,” Heath protested.

  “Certainly not,” Mac agreed. “The murder could have been unpremeditated, a crime of opportunity carried out precisely because Phillimore was so vulnerable. I suspect premeditation, however. You might want to have a toxicology report run, Inspector, to see if there were any drugs in his body at the time of his death. That would accelerate the effects of the alcohol.”

  “I’d like to back up a little,” Lynda said. “What do you think about this murder idea, Inspector?”

  “Before I answer that, we’d better go off the record. Anything I say now will be speculation and I don’t want to be accused of sensationalism.”

  Lynda rolled her eyes. “Oh, no, we’ll leave the sensationalism to Faro. All right, I agree to keep it under my hat, which I’m not wearing, until you’re ready to say something official. But I want to be the first to get the official word.”

  “Right, then. Publicly, this remains a suicide investigation. Privately, Mr. McCabe has made a rather convincing case and I am no longer certain that Mr. Phillimore ended his own life. I’m far from convinced, but this could indeed be a matter of murder.”

  “Well, you’ve got about a thousand suspects,” I burst out. “Or however many people he defrauded.”

  “First the victim would have to know that he or she was a victim before the Ponzi scheme story broke.” Mac stroked hi
s beard. “He or she could have come to that knowledge in any number of ways. The problem with the victim-as-killer theory is that, satisfying though homicide might be, it does nothing of itself to fill the pocketbook. A lawsuit might have been a more suitable response. Of course, the killer could also sue the estate as well as taking the more drastic action. No doubt many victims will.

  “What strikes me most about our theoretical killer is that he or she had to know that Phillimore was hiding out at the Langham. Who would know that?”

  “That’s easy - whoever helped him stage his disappearance from Headley Hall,” Lynda said.

  “Precisely,” Mac agreed.

  “We know somebody must have helped him,” I said. “And you’re saying that person also killed him?”

  “Who better to know where he disappeared to?”

  Mac said. “Incidentally, why did Phillimore disappear?”

  “Because he knew the Yard was on to him.” Heath’s eyes got bigger - not as big as his ears, but bigger. “I see what you’re getting at. A leak at the Yard would be a very serious matter. We’re quite sensitive about that sort of thing just now.”

  Scotland Yard was still reeling from the revelation that the Metropolitan Police had bungled the investigation of phone hacking by the now-defunct News of the World, and perhaps even covered up the crimes.

  “Whether that means murder or not,” Lynda said, “it’s definitely a story. And I can write it without using anything that’s off the record.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Son Also Rises

  What Lynda had in mind was obvious: A story raising questions about how Phillimore knew his empire of fraud was “coming apart,” as the putative suicide message put it. A few new facts, a few quotes, and a lot of background would do it. After picking up some innocuous on-the-record comments from Heath to throw in, she could barely wait to get out of his office and start writing.

  Just outside the building, though, we heard, “Mr. McCabe!”

  Mac turned around.

  A guy about my age, dressed in a tailored three-button black suit was walking our way. In a cartoon or a slapstick comedy, his appearance would have called for me to do a double take. He looked like a younger version of the late Arthur James Phillimore to a startling degree, but with dark hair instead of gray. He even had the dimple, although he had skipped the pencil mustache.

  “Yes, I’m McCabe.”

  “I thought I recognized you. Saw you on the telly once. My name is Roger Phillimore. I understand from The Daily Eye that you’re caught up in this mess with my father.”

  What’s a GQ dude like you doing reading that rag?

  Mac raised an eyebrow. “Caught up? Yes, that seems to be all too true. You have my sympathy, Mr. Phillimore.”

  “Sympathy?” He seemed taken aback. “Save it for somebody who needs it. If my father wasn’t dead, I’d be tempted to kill him myself.”

  You wouldn’t say that if you knew he’d been murdered. Or would you? Those British mystery writers like Agatha Christie always love the old double bluff - the murderer doing just what everybody figurers the murderer wouldn’t do.

  Lynda pulled out her notebook and started scribbling.

  “I imagine that a lot of your father’s investors feel that way, Mr. Phillimore,” Mac said. “Oh, meet my brother-in-law and his wife.”

  Hurried handshakes ensued.

  “I didn’t have a penny invested with my father, but I’m one of his biggest victims,” Roger Phillimore said. “He’s ruined the Phillimore name, and in my business reputation is everything.”

  “Your business?” Lynda prodded.

  He seemed to really notice her for the first time. Maybe he’s not into tall, stacked, pretty women with curly hair the color of dark honey. It takes all kinds.

  “I’m the managing partner of a private equity firm, RJP Capital,” he said. “We acquire troubled companies, usually with a leveraged buyout, introduce efficiencies to make them successful, and then either sell them or take them public.”

  I can see where you might want to change your last name before you try to put your next deal together.

  “Were you coming to Scotland Yard or did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?” Mac asked dryly.

  “I want to talk to whomever is investigating my father’s so-called suicide. I think they should take a close look at my stepmother. And if they don’t, then maybe you should since you’re reckoned to be quite the amateur sleuth.”

  “You suspect murder?” Lynda asked, in a skeptical tone that suggested the idea was a novelty, the furthest thing from anybody else’s mind.

  “My father viewed obstacles that stopped others in their tracks as nothing more than annoyances to be overcome. Why would a man like that kill himself? He always believed he would win in the end.”

  Well, the end has come and he’s not looking like a winner right now. I saw the pictures.

  “How do you arrive at the conclusion that Heather O’Toole is responsible for what you believe was your father’s murder?” Mac asked.

  “It adds up. She’s his sole heir and they haven’t been getting along, from what I hear.” He shook his head in an attempt to look doleful. “I never thought that marriage was for the long haul - Heather’s younger than I am.”

  “But still, murder?” Lynda said. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

  “I know that woman. I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

  “What makes you so sure she’s your father’s only heir?” I asked. That kind of thing isn’t usually public knowledge, unless Phillimore chose to bandy it about.

  Phillimore tried to get taller. “I disinherited myself when he divorced my mother two years ago. I told him I didn’t want anything to do with his money. I have enough of my own. I’m sure he was only too happy to honor my wishes. Since he had no favorite charities except himself, I presume the money went to her.”

  “But there’s probably nothing for her to inherit but what you yourself called a mess,” Lynda pointed out. “This could drag through the courts for years as the investors try to salvage something, possibly even going after personal assets outside the company.”

  “I’m sure Heather didn’t bother her pretty little head about my father’s business. She didn’t know it was all a house of cards just waiting for a good wind to blow it over.”

  Nice metaphor. I made a mental note of it.

  “Heather O’Toole has a substantial income stream of her own,” Mac pointed out. “Actresses of Bond girl stature do not get paid minimum wage. And surely there was a prenuptial agreement that would settle a sum of money on her if they divorced.”

  “Right.” I love the way the British say that. “But prenup or no, working through that kind of thing takes an army of lawyers and lots of time. Heather isn’t a patient woman.”

  “What about your mother, the first Mrs. Phillimore?” Lynda said. “If somebody killed your father, it seems to me she’d have as good a motive as anybody - woman scorned and all that.”

  Phillimore shook his head. “No, no, no. You don’t know my mother. I would swear that she was totally faithful to my father for thirty-six years, but she took a sizeable settlement from him at the divorce and hasn’t looked back. She’s not the wife you need to look into.”

  “I do not suppose you have anything to offer Scotland Yard - or us - in the way of proof,” Mac said, “or you would have mentioned it.”

  “Proof is your department. You’re the detectives and I wish you good luck with it.” He turned around, heading toward the building from which we’d come, but then faced us again. “I do have one suggestion: Trout.”

  “The butler?” I said.

  Phillimore smirked. “Butler my arse! If he’s a butler I’m the Queen’s gardener. Did you ever see a butler with biceps like that? I t
hink you’ll find that the service he’s been rendering my step-mother is of quite a different nature.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bodybuilding

  “Whew, there goes a man with an axe to grind,” I said as Roger Phillimore headed back to the glass and steel building we’d just left. “We already knew that Trout’s not just a butler. Heather said he’s also her personal trainer and bodyguard.”

  “Indeed,” Mac said. “However, sometimes axe grinders have a valid point. If there is a romantic relationship between Ms. O’Toole and this man Trout, it would certainly be an added incentive to want her husband out of the picture.”

  “And she’s an American!” Lynda almost shouted it. “According to your theory, Mac, the killer must be an American, or somebody who spells like one. That would have been a very clever ploy for the killer to text herself a fake suicide note on Phillimore’s phone.”

  What would Heather O’Toole look like in a prison uniform? Still great! I was conjuring up the image when Lynda added, “Next stop, Headley Hall?”

  That was easier said than done. It took us a train and a cab to get there, with the cabbie muttering all the while about some of the major roads already being changed to one-way for the Olympics later in the summer. The rain was no help. That June turned out to be the wettest month in London since the dawn of weather records, and we kept getting caught in it.

  Mac had decided not to phone ahead. “If forewarned is forearmed, as the cliché has it, I would prefer that Ms. O’Toole not be forearmed.”

  A gaggle (herd? flock? pack?) of a half-dozen or so paparazzi, apparently having gotten the word that HO’T was in residence, were camped outside Headley Hall when we finally got there. They stirred en masse and ran our way when they saw us coming. But they relaxed and lowered their cameras when they realized we weren’t a bunch of Hollywood stars come to call on the Widow Phillimore. One astute fellow in blue jeans and long hair did give Lynda a second look just to be sure. Who can blame him? Anyway, we sailed past the paparazzi with a jaunty wave.

  When Trout opened the door, I immediately thought that maybe Mac was on to something - and the younger Phillimore, too. Trout wasn’t dressed like any butler I’d ever seen. He was wearing blue gym shorts and a white sleeveless T-shirt showing off muscles that would give Rod Chance a run for his money. That reminded me that we’d seen Chance, HO’T’s first husband, coming out of this house. If we were looking for a romantic relationship, maybe we didn’t have to look at the hired help. Then again, Trout didn’t exactly look like hired help today.